


They say we're young and we don't know, we won't find out until we grow

by silk_knickers



Category: Clueless (1995)
Genre: Angst, Canon Het Relationship, Divorce, F/M, Growing Up, Remarriage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-20
Updated: 2012-12-20
Packaged: 2017-11-21 16:30:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/599814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silk_knickers/pseuds/silk_knickers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Not everything can be planned out, and love least of all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	They say we're young and we don't know, we won't find out until we grow

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sinverguenza](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sinverguenza/gifts).



Once I started dating Josh, my life seemed perfect. I'd never been happier. 

All of the girls in my year were super jealous that I was dating a college guy, although that was probably because most of them didn't know what a big dork Josh was. Josh was the sweetest, smartest boy I knew, but he was definitely not cool. Would you believe, he totally wouldn't let me dress him? "I'll be wearing suits for the rest of my life," he told me once. "Can't I keep the flannel for now?" I kept telling him that flannel was a ridiculous choice for Southern California, but on the other hand it was kind of soft and cozy when we cuddled on the couch and watched television together, so eventually I stopped arguing.

Anyway, things were going really well between us. School was going well too. Josh helped me study, and he never made me feel dumb when he explained things like how the Phoenicians didn't live in Arizona. Did you know that the Phoenicians were an ancient culture famous for inventing a purple dye? It was made out of snails, which sounds really gross to me, but I guess it was pretty fashion-forward for 1000 B.C. when everyone just wore boring old togas. Plus, purple snail fabric probably didn't show stains too badly, I'd imagine. I wonder what Josh's friends would think about it? It was totally organic and all-natural, but not really very animal-friendly. Or do snails even count as animals?

Anyway, my grades were improving every semester, and I didn't even need to negotiate them up, most of the time. By the fall of my senior year, I felt like the undisputed queen of the school. But then one day in October, daddy asked me the most terrifying question I'd ever heard.

"So, Cher. What are you thinking about college?"

~~~~~

"Josh," I pouted just a little teeny, tiny bit, while knocking on the frame of his open bedroom door. Daddy didn't mind that we were dating, but he didn't want us to be in each others' rooms with the doors closed. He'd given us a big lecture when we first started going out all about statuary, which I didn't entirely understand, but I think the main point was that we were supposed to wait until marriage or the next millenium, whichever came later.

Josh was sprawled out on his bed with an open textbook, in a position that couldn't possibly have been good for his neck or his back. He looked up and flashed me one of his perfect smiles, the kind that make me go a little bit weak in the knees. I bit my lower lip and went over to join him.

"Hey, sweetpea. What's wrong?" He gave me a quick kiss on the lips.

"I'm going to go to college next year!" I blurted out.

"Oh...kay," Josh said, looking confused. "Is that a bad thing?"

"Yes! No! I mean..." I frowned, and tried to put what I was feeling into the right words. "It's just, I'm going to graduate soon, and go to college, and you're busy applying to law schools." Josh looked even more concerned. "So, what's going to happen to daddy if we're not here to take care of him?"

Josh blew out a heavy sigh, then kissed me on the forehead and nudged me gently on the chin. "Mel's a grown man, honey. He'll be okay."

"I know that. But if he's living here all alone, he'll make Lucy cook him steak for dinner every night and he'll never eat any vegetables, and then he'll get scurvy and all the bad cholesterol, and have a heart attack. If I go away to college, he won't have anyone to make him eat right or go to bed before 3 am. How can I just leave him like that?"

Josh kissed me again. "It's a normal part of life, Cher. Kids grow up, and then they go out and have their own lives. But it doesn't mean they never see each other again. And, hey, you can always call him on the phone, right? Let your fingers do the walking..." he ran his fingers down my side, and I laughed. Phoning dad wouldn't be the same at all, particularly with dad's crazy work hours, but I guessed there would always be AOL.

"You know," Josh said softly, "for a second there, I thought you were going to break up with me." He said it lightly, but I could tell that he really was just a little worried too.

"What? Why would I do that?"

"Well, you were talking about you going to college, and me going to law school..."

I grinned and pecked him on the cheek. "There's, like, hundreds of good law schools, and I'm pretty sure almost all of them are near a college."

Josh frowned at that, and looked just a little sad. Haltingly, he said, "Cher, you're smart, and beautiful, and such a good person... you shouldn't just follow me where I go. You should figure out what you want to do, and go to the college you want to go to, for yourself."

"But what if I _want_ to go to college where I can be near you? Isn't that just as good a reason to pick a school as any?"

"You're so young, Cher. You have your whole life ahead of you, and I'm your first real boyfriend. What if you wake up some day and realize you aren't in love with me after all... what if you're just in love with being in love?"

I guess it was nice that Josh was looking out for me, but it made me a little mad too that he didn't trust me to know my own feelings. "It's not like you're some old man. You're only a few years older than me."

"I just don't want you to make any choices you'll regret later."

"Do you regret dating me?"

"No!"

I just wanted to be with Josh; _of course_ I was going to try to pick a school near wherever he ended up getting in to law school. But I'm not stupid either; I know that life isn't one big romantic comedy where every love is the One True Love. It wasn't like our lives were some kind of Molly Ringwald movie; we didn't grow up on different sides of Los Angeles or whatever and have to overcome adversity and the derision of our peers just to be together. All of my friends really liked Josh, and Daddy was totally fine with us being together. 

I didn't know where any of this was coming from, or what I could do to make Josh believe it when I said that I loved him.

But then I had an amazing idea, a perfect vision of the future for all of us. It would solve two problems at once! I could prove to Josh just how much he meant to me, and make sure that there was someone to look after daddy after I went away to college too!

It would just take a little bit of planning, and there wasn't a lot of time...

~~~~~

Lucy put the Thanksgiving turkey on the dining room table just as the doorbell rang.

"I'll get it!" I shouted, leaping to my feet. I totally had to pause for a second to catch my breath when I got there, but I didn't want Josh or Lucy to answer the door ahead of me. Pasting on a big, welcoming smile, I opened the door.

"Cher! You're so tall!" the elegantly-clad woman at the door exclaimed.

"Ruth!" I said, beaming. "I'm so glad you could make it!"

"Who's at the door, Cher?" my dad called from the dining room.

"It's a surprise!" I replied.

Josh poked his head around the doorframe. His eyes widened, "Oh. My. God. Cher? What did you do?"

I frowned. That was no way to greet your mother. Fortunately, Ruth took matters into her own hands, and fluttered past me with her arms outstretched. "Joshua, baby!"

"Mom!" Josh recovered quickly, giving a little laugh and leaning into the hug. "I thought you were in Istanbul."

"Well, I was, but when Cher here called me up and told me that the two of you were getting engaged, I hopped the first flight back here."

"En... gaged?" Josh stuttered.

"Engaged?" dad bellowed from the dining room.

Okay, maybe my plan wasn't _perfect_ , but the first part had worked: Josh's mom was here. The rest was up to dad.

"Well!" I said cheerfully. "We should all sit down; the turkey will get cold, and Lucy worked all day on it."

~~~~~

Dinner was awkward, to say the least.

Josh kept trying to catch my eye, but I tried not to look back at him. I knew he was angry with me about my little fib -- but it wasn't a lie, really; I was sure we were going to get engaged _eventually._ Besides, when the rest of my plan worked, he'd understand.

Dad was angry, too, and kept glaring at Josh. That hadn't been part of the plan at all! I needed him to calm down. "More wine, daddy?" I offered. "A glass or two of red wine per day is supposed to be good for the heart."

Dad's glare fixed on me for just a moment. "I don't need any more wine," he growled.

"Don't growl at your daughter, Mel," Ruth chided him, delicately slicing her turkey.

"Don't tell me what to do!" he snapped back. Soon they were squabbling, just like before their divorce, which was not at all what I'd been aiming for.

Josh took advantage of the distraction and pulled me into the den by the elbow, but we could still hear our parents arguing in the other room.

"What were you thinking, inviting her here? And telling her we were engaged?" he whispered harshly.

I shrugged him off. "It was the only thing I could think of to get her back here. You haven't seen your mom in two years! And it's Thanksgiving! I just thought it would be nice!"

He tilted his head to the side, studying me with narrowed eyes. "Uh-huh. I'm on to you," he drawled. "What else do you have up your sleeve?"

"Nothing!"

Josh looked at me skeptically.

"Okay, fine. I just thought, you know, maybe if they were in the same room together again, they would remember why they fell in love the first time, and get back together. That way, daddy wouldn't have to be so alone after I graduate."

"And they'd fall back in love, just like that?"

I shrugged. "Well, there was _a little_ more to it. I made sure Lucy got your mom's favorite wine, and the dessert that they had at their wedding reception. I made a mixtape of their favorite music, and was going to put it in the stereo while you and I went upstairs to leave them alone after dinner." I had also put a few family photos from when dad and Ruth had been together around the house in strategic positions, and had been starting conversations with "Daddy, do you remember that time..." for days and days. It wasn't at all my best work, but I had been on a tight schedule. College applications were due in December!

"They're too young to get married!" my dad shouted.

"I couldn't agree more!" Josh's mom replied, at equal volume.

"About that..." Josh whispered in my ear.

I winced. "Okay, hear me out. I figured, since you and I are dating, the two of them are going to see each other at family gatherings all the time _anyway_ , so..."

"So they should be thrown together at the quickest possible opportunity?"

"So they're perfect for each other! They fell in love once. They could do it again. I just want everyone to be as _happy_ as _we_ are..."

Josh sighed. "Your mind is a very byzantine place, but you mean well... more or less."

I suddenly heard laughter from the dining room. Josh heard it too. We stared at one another, wide-eyed.

"You don't think..." Josh started.

The two of us tiptoed toward the dining room and peaked around the corner.

~~~~~

Sometimes, the universe is a pretty funny place. Dionne would call it karma.

My genius plan to get Josh's mom and my dad back together had actually worked, mostly. I hadn't really meant for them to unite in opposition to my fictious engagement, but it was the first little spark that reignited an even bigger flame. I was grounded from Thanksgiving until New Year's Day, but Ruth had realized how much she'd missed of her son's life being abroad all the time, and started taking fewer assignments overseas so that she could spend more and more time with him -- and with my dad. By the time I graduated, they were ready to move in together again, and by the following summer they were married.

Josh went to law school on the east coast, and I went to art school in northern California. He convinced me that we could make the long-distance relationship work, but -- it didn't. Josh had been right all along after all. (I told you he was smart.) I was too young to be as serious about anyone as I had been about him; I just wasn't ready to be so deeply in love. I had to figure out who Cher Horowitz was first.

So I went to art school, and majored in interior design, and I even dated a few guys who _weren't_ my ex-ex-stepbrother. And I made myself a promise: no more meddling in other people's love lives! (Although I do have to say, my success rate was pretty high, if you looked only at results and not at methods.) Interior decorating was the perfect career for me, though. I got to go shopping all the time, and was bringing beauty into other people's lives. And it turned out that I had a pretty good business sense too. I moved back to Los Angeles, and really made a name for myself in Beverley Hills. I've even done the set design for a couple of movies. Who knows; I might even win an Oscar for my work some day.

But here's the _really_ funny part...

Since our parents remarried, I see Josh _all the time_. It was really awkward at Thanksgivings after we broke up for the first few years. But last year, on New Year's Eve, we were at our parents' party, and when the clock struck midnight -- we kissed!

The next morning, Josh told me that his firm had transferred him back to L.A. from their New York office. He actually hired me to decorate his new apartment here, and of course I gave him everything at cost. After all, we go way back.

We're having brunch tomorrow. He's as gorgeous and funny and smart as ever, and when he smiles it still makes my knees a little weak. I think I want him back in my life; I think I'm finally ready. And I even have a plan: just be ourselves, and see what happens.


End file.
